


i will stand here, and burn in my skin

by trustingno1



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Infidelity, M/M, Post-His Last Vow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 19:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2036448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trustingno1/pseuds/trustingno1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John pauses. Stares at the door. Half-turns towards Sherlock. Back to the door.</p>
<p>"Is he your-" he starts, and Sherlock glances up, over the top of his laptop. "Your-"</p>
<p>"Flatmate," Sherlock supplies.</p>
<p>"Boyfriend?" John chokes out, simultaneously, and Sherlock's looking at him like he's gone completely mad, and - who knows? Maybe he has.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i will stand here, and burn in my skin

**Author's Note:**

> For a [prompt meme](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/22393.html?thread=131225209#t131225209) fill; title from Roy LaMontagne's _Burn_ ♥.
> 
> Post- _His Last Vow_ , and makes reference to Mary and Baby Watson.

"Hey," John says, knocking on the open door of 221B, "Short shift today, and I'm starving. Lunch?"  
  
Sherlock's perched in his armchair, laptop balanced on his crossed legs. He glances up, a little startled. "John?" he says, curiously.  
  
John stops near his old chair. "Yeah, hi," he says, and he's grinning, a little helplessly, at Sherlock's perplexed face. "Hungry?" and before Sherlock can answer, there's a noise behind him, and even as he turns in surprise, he notices that Sherlock's not reacting.  
  
A man with shower-damp hair pulls up short in the kitchen, halfway through buttoning up his shirt.  
  
"Hi," he says, glancing from John, to Sherlock behind him, but Sherlock doesn't offer any introductions, so John takes a few steps towards him.  
  
"Hi," he offers, offering a jerky hand. "John. John Watson."  
  
"Oh, _right_. Paul," the other man says, like that should mean something to John, "Heard a lot about you." His grip's firm, and John squeezes a little harder than necessary.  
  
"Sure," John nods, gamely - can't quite return the sentiment. He glances over his shoulder to Sherlock, for a bit of bloody help, but Sherlock's ignoring them both, and Paul finishes doing up his shirt.  
  
"I'd offer you some tea, but I don't think we've got any milk," Paul says, with a rueful half-smile, and Sherlock hums, without looking up from his laptop. "I told you we needed some _yesterday_ ," he says.  
  
"You did," Sherlock agrees.  
  
"So - what, you'll get some tomorrow?" Paul teases, and there's a small smile playing at Sherlock's lips that - for reasons he can't (won't?) quite explain - irritates the _ever-loving_ _fuck_ out of John.  
  
"Don't hold your breath," he interrupts, too flatly, and everyone falls silent. Sherlock actually glances up over the top of the laptop to blink at John for a moment.  
  
John tries to smile.  
  
Paul studies Sherlock for a moment. "There's this thing called sleeping," he says, lightly. "You should try it, sometime."  
  
Sherlock shrugs, irritably.  
  
Paul gives John a _what-can-you-do?_ grin as he shrugs into his coat. "I'll be back around seven," Paul says, and Sherlock doesn't reply, frowning back down at the computer screen and typing, furiously, and Paul grins again, pulling the door closed behind him.  
  
John pauses. Stares at the door. Half-turns towards Sherlock. Back to the door.  
  
"Is he your-" he starts, and Sherlock glances up, over his laptop again. "Your-"  
  
"Flatmate," Sherlock supplies.  
  
"Boyfriend?" John chokes out, simultaneously, and Sherlock's looking at him like he's gone completely mad, and - who knows? Maybe he has.  
  
"Boyfriend?" Sherlock echoes.  
  
" _Flatmate_?" John repeats. "Isn't it a bit-" he breaks off, and Sherlock raises an eyebrow at him to continue, "soon?" he finishes, weakly.  
  
Sherlock cocks his head to the side, so slightly, and considers John. "It's been," he says, and his eyes dart back and forth for a moment, "one thousand, two hundred and fourteen days since you and I were flatmates," and it _can't_ have been that long, surely.  
  
"I stayed here last _year_ ," John points out, a little incredulously, a little offended, "in case you didn't notice."  
  
"Of course I _noticed_ ," Sherlock says, more tetchily than John feels he deserves. "But not as a flatmate. Just until you sorted things out with your _wife_ ," there's an inscrutable expression on his face, "How _is_ Mary?"  
  
"Wha - _fine_ , Christ, Sherlock," John says.  
  
"Good," Sherlock says, tapping at the keyboard with unnecessary force.  
  
"So. _Paul_ ," John says, settling into his old armchair. "What does he do?" Off Sherlock's blank look, he prompts, "You know, for work?"  
  
"Haven't the faintest," Sherlock murmurs, glancing back down at his laptop, and John laughs a little, humorlessly.  
  
"Couldn't you just _deduce_ it?" he asks, and he _knows_ he's being a dick, but he can't _help_ it.  
  
"Did. Deleted it."  
  
"Does he," John hesitates, "Does he go on cases with you?"  
  
"What for?"  
  
"Is he - _part_ of a case?" John asks, and there's a not-so-small part of him that spitefully hopes he is.  
  
"He helps me pay the rent."  
  
"You don't _need_ help paying the rent," John mutters, "You need someone to _remind_ you to pay the rent."  
  
Sherlock squints at him. "Isn't that what I said?"  
  
John smiles, slightly, close-mouthed and wan. "Where does he sleep?" he asks. He knows. Wants to hear it.  
  
"Upstairs bedroom," Sherlock says, in a tone John knows _well_ , a tone that means John's asking stupid questions.  
  
" _My_ bedroom," John corrects, under his breath, and after a beat, Sherlock glances up. He closes the laptop, places it on the ground and steeples his hands together under his chin.  
  
"Sorry - what's happening?" he asks, warily. "You're _angry_ with me."  
  
"I'm not _angry_ ," John snaps. He pauses, regroups. "I'm not angry," he says, mildly. "I'm just surprised."  
  
"That someone else would find living with me tolerable?" Sherlock asks.  
  
"No!" he says, "Not - not that. Living with you-" Sherlock raises an eyebrow, and John hesitates ( - gunfire and ridiculous rows and heads in the fridge and -).  "Well. It was - never boring."  
  
An old joke, and Sherlock half-smiles in recognition, but "I don't understand," he presses, gaze unwavering, "Why does me having a flatmate make you angry?"  
  
"I'm not-" John bites off. "Forget it."  
  
Sherlock tilts his head to the side for a moment. "You're _jealous_ ," he breathes, eyes widening like he's solved some sort of bloody _puzzle_.  
  
"Sherlock," John says, warningly. He doesn't want to hear it.  
  
"You _are_ ," Sherlock says, fascinated, eyes following John as he storms into the kitchen (he fights the tightness in his chest and grabs the back of a dining chair and takes a couple of steadying breaths).  
  
" _I am not jealous_ ," he says, turning back to point at Sherlock, who's still sitting, legs crossed, fingers linked in his lap.  
  
"You are," Sherlock says. "Just like you were jealous of The Woman," and John flushes a little, ugly humiliation, at the thought that he was so obvious, even back then, "Just like you were jealous of Janine-"  
  
"I'm not _jealous_ ," John says, again, tightly, and because Sherlock never knows when to just _leave it be_ -  
  
"You have a wife and _daughter_ , John, and you're upset that I'm leasing out the upstairs bedroom?"  
  
John throws his hands up in the air. "That is _completely_ different."  
  
Sherlock narrows his eyes slightly, before standing, abruptly, linking his hands behind his back as he moves towards John.  
  
"You chose Mary, John," he says, evenly.  "You _chose her_. So you don't get to begrudge me _this_."  
  
Christ, he can't breathe. He grabs the back of the dining chair again, head bowed, and Sherlock stops behind him.  
  
"Choosing," he says, roughly, without lifting his chin, because they've been shying away from this conversation for months - maybe years - but they're going to have it today, apparently, "makes it sound like there was ... more than one option." _Was there?_ he doesn't ask, but Sherlock hears it, all the same.  
  
"There always was," he says, quietly, and for fuck's sake, he stopped by hoping for _lunch_ and Sherlock's just - upending his bloody _life_ and he doesn't know why that even surprises him anymore.  
  
" _Sherlock_ ," he tries, but it catches in his throat, chokes him.  
  
"What do you want from me?" Sherlock demands, less composed, and John turns to face him. "You're uncomfortable with any suggestion that I might feel - _affection_ for you, but the thought of me even having a flatmate is apparently so _intolerable_ -"  
  
John grabs the front of Sherlock's dressing gown and yanks him down, kissing him _hard_ , mouths barely moving against each other, pressed together so tightly he can feel his teeth on the inside of his lips for a moment.  
  
Sherlock opens his mouth to him, tilting his head to the side, and John can hear him suck a shaky breath in through his nose. His tongue teases Sherlock's, and he cocks his head to the other side and kisses him like he might never get to, again.  
  
He gentles the kiss, and Sherlock rests a steadying hand high on John's side, and John kisses him deliberately, once, twice, before pulling back  
  
(and when he let himself think about this, it was always Sherlock who made the first move).  
  
"Shut up," John mumbles, "Just - shut up."  
  
Sherlock swallows. Hesitates. John's grip on his dressing gown tightens for a moment before he lets go, steps away.  
  
"I," he clears his throat, "I should - go."  
  
Sherlock's expression is an achingly, blankly perplexed one he remembers ("I'm your ... best ... friend?") but his tongue darts out to lick at spit-shiny lips  
  
(like he's trying to _taste_ John and bloody _hell_ ).  
  
John's fist clenches and unclenches by his side before he gives Sherlock a short nod.  
  
(He leaves because that's what he _does_ , what he's always done - runs to Sarah's, or Harry's, or Mary's; disappears onto a dance-floor or drives away from the airfield when it's all just _too much_ and Sherlock, Sherlock will always let him).  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
  
(He comes back, hours later, letting himself in with a key he never bothered to return. The room's only lit with a lamp, and it takes his eyes a second to adjust -  
  
"John?" Sherlock asks, lifting his head.  
  
"Hi," he says, softly, mindful of the hour. "Did I wake you?"  
  
"No," Sherlock says. "Just - thinking."  
  
(He's on the couch, staring at the ceiling and loving John).  
  
"I just-" _need a bit more time_ , he doesn't say. Won't say.  
  
"Yes," Sherlock says, after a beat, like John and his human emotions are so terribly _peculiar_ to him, and John laughs, a little unsteadily.  
  
"Sherlock, I'm not the same man you met," he says, hands in his pockets, and they've lived apart longer than they ever lived _together_ , but what comes out, what he needs Sherlock to understand, is, "I have Lucy." Off Sherlock's blank look, he adds, brow furrowing, "My daughter?"  
  
"I _know_ ," Sherlock says, a little irritably, pushing himself up on the couch, and Christ, OK.  
  
"Thought you might've deleted it," John says, lightly, sitting down next to him (not close enough that they're touching anywhere, but - close).  
  
"I've never deleted anything about you," Sherlock says, without looking at him. "I just don't understand-" and of course he doesn't, and John cuts him off.  
  
"We're - we're a bit of a package deal," he says. "Whatever happens with me and Mary-" and no, that's not quite right, and Sherlock's always been the braver of them, when it comes to this, "If Mary gets custody," he says, instead, evenly, like the thought doesn't painfully twist up a part of his heart he didn't know _existed_ six months ago (the things, the _firsts_ , he's going to miss), twist it up until he can't breathe properly, and Sherlock goes very still beside him. "I'd still want to see Lucy as much as I could." He risks a glance over at Sherlock, who looks _bewildered_. "And I don't imagine that children are really your area."  
  
"No," Sherlock agrees, and John's lips twitch in a humorless smile, but Sherlock adds, "But - John, she's a _part of you_. You can't think that I wouldn't move heaven and earth for her," his voice catches, "You can't think that I wouldn't love her as completely as I possibly can."  
  
John's throat aches, eyes prickling with - relief? release? - and he looks at Sherlock again. "I don't know," he says, "I've seen you with Harry," and his laugh sounds like a sob, and Sherlock smiles back at him.  
  
"She threw that mug so hard she actually dented the kitchen wall," Sherlock murmurs, and John snickers.  
  
"She did _not_ ," he says, but Sherlock's laughing too, and that just makes him laugh _harder_.  
  
"I liked that mug," Sherlock adds. "And I very nearly didn't duck in time."  
  
"Shh," he whispers, through another bubble of laughter, "It's the middle of the _night_."  
  
He turns on the couch and buries his face in Sherlock's shoulder, smile fading after a moment, and, like he senses it, Sherlock rests his hand on John's thigh. He turns his head and presses a kiss to Sherlock's shoulder and Sherlock squeezes his leg in reply and this time, this time, John stays exactly where he is).  
  
  
  
  



End file.
